Receiving that text is probably not your idea of an invitation to an exciting weeknight dinner. But this isn’t a celery sticks and water kind of diet (sorry celery apologetics) this is a tasty diet! I have friends that will humor me, but I wasn’t about to serve bacon and eggs to my dinner guest, I have a reputation to maintain here, and had hard-boiled all my eggs. Here’s a great meal idea I came up with that is not only within the parameters of my ketogenic diet (no carbohydrates), but also within everyone’s parameters for cheese-love (plus I promised cheesecake, but that’s for another day). Chicken breast stuffed with bacon, cheddar, and spinach (pigs in a blanket, a blanket of chicken) and a side of roasted cauliflower.

Cook your bacon crispy and keep the rendered fat. In the baconed skillet (it’s a culinary term), wilt the spinach–if you used a leaner bacon like turkey, feel free to add some olive oil to the skillet. Crumble the bacon into the wilted spinach and stir in the grated cheddar cheese–set this aside, it will be the stuffing. Heat the oven to 350. Butterfly the chicken breasts and brown them in the aforementioned baconed cast iron skillet in a bit of olive oil, then remove from the heat. Using your better judgement, or your calloused bear hands, stuff the breasts with the spinach mixture and use some butcher’s twine to keep everything snug. Put the breasts back in the skillet, cover with foil, mark it with a “B” and put it in the oven for baby and me. 15 minutes should do the trick–but baby doesn’t get stuffed chicken, baby gets smushed peas.

Roasted Cauliflower:

1 head of cauliflower
1/2 cup of olive oil
salt
pepper
paprika

Set oven to 350. Break the cauliflower into small florets, coat in olive oil and place in a single layer in a baking dish. Sprinkle with spices and bake while debating the differences between roast and bake. Upset the houseguests, apologize, remind them that you were right all along (like always)–should take about 15 minutes.